Selected papers from the 2011 Soil Ecology Society conference: An emphasis on fungi and forest or prairie soils

This special issue of Applied Soil Ecology contains a selection of peer-reviewed papers presented at the 13th biennial meeting of the Soil Ecology Society (SES) held in Kelowna, B.C., Canada on May 24-27, 2011 on the Okanagan campus of the University of British Columbia. This conference invited presentations on all applied soil ecology research topics, and papers in this special issue examine the roles and interactions of microbes and soil fauna in soil processes in different soil ecosystems, including forests, prairie, and agro-ecosystems. In this introduction, in addition to a synopsis of the conference and papers in the special issue, research topics of the 13 articles in this special issue were compared with 326 articles published in Applied Soil Ecology from 2010 to 2012 to reveal trends and emphasis in research and publications. Although the SES 2011 meeting was not organized around a specific theme, research topic terms show papers in this special issue were more dominated by studies on mycorrhizal fungi and on forest or prairie soils when compared to recent ASE articles.